


Rennervate

by SLWalker



Series: due South Wizard!Verse [10]
Category: due South
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-03
Updated: 2012-06-03
Packaged: 2017-11-06 18:53:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/422037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SLWalker/pseuds/SLWalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four days after Mike discovers the wizarding world, and Turnbull still can't obliviate him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rennervate

"So. Wizards."

"Yes, sir."

I still cannot bring myself to obliviate him, even if occasionally my anxiety has urged me in that direction. It has been four days, and in that four days, Corporal Chase has not spoken once of what he saw. But we are again alone, parked facing opposite directions in our respective cruisers, and after some easy conversation about a ticket he had just written to a speeding motorist, the extremely large elephant in the room has made its presence known.

I am relieved by his discretion thus far. I still do not know what to _do_.

He nods, one eyebrow slightly elevated, looking out of his own windshield. I cannot do more than glance over, before I am looking out of my own again.

"Wizards, invisible villages and vampires."

For reasons I cannot understand, I feel myself turn red. "Yes, sir."

He is aware the call that I went out on was that of a common barfight. It amused him. Perhaps because, when you strip away the obvious differences between the two societies I straddle, some things inevitably remain the same. I have yet to explain to him that an auror's true work is often more akin to long-term federal investigations in the RCMP than it is to street-level patrol, but it doesn't seem entirely appropriate to do so. Particularly as I have only dealt with two dark wizards in my time, but complaints about theft, drunk and disorderly conduct, missing owls and operating a broomstick under the influence are far more common.

I am, I must admit, somewhat startled with the calm the corporal has displayed thus far. Muggles seem to find magic difficult to comprehend, and those unwittingly exposed can end up quite frightened, or envious, or even hysterical. There are reasons obliviation is the standard answer for such things, and it is not all selfish desire to protect ourselves. Some of it, perhaps even the majority of it these days, is to protect _them_. There are a number of cautionary tales we are taught as students learning to wield our magic, and there are a number of truly awful ones we learn as aurors. It is one of the reasons, aside an attempt to foster understanding and compassion towards muggles, that the aurors in Canada are integrated into the RCMP. It allows us to protect both societies, separately and from each other.

Corporal Chase does not seem frightened. Nor does he seem envious.

I must admit, I find myself intensely curious about what he _thinks_ of all of this.

As of now, if he thinks anything, he keeps it to himself. He regards me with a thoughtfulness of a different flavor than I had gotten before, but thus far, in no greater or lesser esteem than he had. He does not press upon me for explanations or demand that I answer for my other duties; even his prompts just now seem more to offer an opening than force one.

He does not act much differently than he had before. I am not sure whether I find that more unnerving or admirable.

"I have never placed my duties there above my duties here," I say, and I wish I could steal the words back once they're out; they come out more rushed, more imploring, than I am even remotely comfortable with.

Corporal Chase blinks, and looks over at me, eyebrows drawn and a small frown on his face. "I didn't think you had, Turnbull."

"I wouldn't," I say, and I feel as though I am just digging myself deeper with every word. As though I am begging for forgiveness for a pure-blood heritage of discrimination that he would not even understand, let alone condemn me for, but I find I cannot stop myself. "This... this matters. Nipawin. I wouldn't-- that is to say, there are-- some believe that--"

"That...?" he asks, with unassuming patience, eyebrows up now in a clear prompt to continue.

"That those without magic are inferior; less deserving of consideration, than wizards and witches," I make myself say, and it feels as terrible as it sounds.

Corporal Chase scoffs, a sound of clear dismissal. "There are types who think like that in _every_ group, Turnbull."

And he is right. There are. My troopmates at Depot showed that, though it did not go very far before I chose to make them forget the conversation they had overheard. I sometimes wonder how Reyes is doing; I don't doubt he is a fine Mountie. It seems ironic that not long after I compare the similarities between the two societies, I need reminded of that.

"Yes, sir," I answer, and his words do lift a weight from me. Of guilt. Or anxiety. I am not certain; perhaps it is both.

He does not ask me if I am one of them, who believes that.

Silence falls again. Chase looks thoughtful. He is one of the few people -- wizard or muggle -- I have found comfortable to sit next to in silence. I wish I knew _what_ he was thinking. I can only imagine that it must be--

"I think I'm going fishing Saturday," he declares, leaning forward to peer at the sky.

\--not at all what I was expecting. "Fishing?" I ask, wondering if he is referring to chasing motorists or chasing trout in this particular instance. He uses the term for both.

"Yeah. It's supposed to be sunny out, and I haven't hauled out my gear since last year." Chase leans back in his seat, resting his arm on the windowframe. "There's this spot up by Tobin Lake on a pretty nice stream, off of 123, about five or six miles from your invisible village. I remembered it when I was up there."

"Ah."

Silence falls again. Peaceful, it seems, on his part. Baffled on mine.

It stretches until I cannot help but break it.

"What do you-- that is, it's against the-- I mean to ask--"

Chase looks over at me, eyebrow up, amused. "Spit it out, Turnbull." Despite his amusement, there's no derision in the tone. I've found myself on the other end of it many times, and even with my words tripping over themselves to get out of my mouth, I feel the urge to grin back.

"What do you think?"

"About what? Fishing or wizards?"

"Wizards," I answer, finding myself oddly breathless.

"I don't know yet," Chase answers, frankly. "I don't know what I think about it yet. I'm still working that out."

"Oh." I wait a beat. "And... and fishing?"

"If you're flying around on your broom and need backup, then you'll know about where I am."

I have no idea what to say to that. I nod, at least that I have heard it. But I have no intentions of calling him for backup; doing so would put us both in danger, and I have been defiant enough against established protocol for now. Corporal Chase looks amused; I find myself wondering if it is for the image of me riding a broom, and I blush.

"I will... keep that in mind."

"Good."

We speak no more of it for the rest of the shift.

 

 

 

I am not in need of backup, when I fly the line of the river towards Tobin Lake. I am not on-duty at all, though I am perpetually on call, for either world I serve.

I don't know why I'm out here. It is not as though Chase gave me an open invitation to join him for any purpose other than backup. I have no real desire to go fishing, and the weather is still too chilly to be strictly comfortable. Even so, I go. Below, the grays and browns of a world not yet ready to wake from winter blur.

I know which stream he speaks of, and covering the distance via air is easier than driving. It is nestled among the trees, for the most part. I have a disillusionment charm on me when I fly over, and he is fishing in waders and flannels; it takes me a number of moments of internal debate to decide which way I should go. Whether I should land, and make my presence known, or whether I should simply continue on and set this all aside as some strange whimsy that need not be given into. We have never really socialized before, despite his occasional invitation. Before, I was always too busy between my two lives, and continuing education.

I don't know why I'm here.

When I land and dispel my charm, I inadvertently step on a branch and give away my position. Chase turns and spots me, and smiles in a manner that makes it impossible to resist smiling back.

He turns back to his fishing. "Need backup, or...?"

"Ah, no." Somehow, the 'sir' seems inappropriate right now. I step down towards the bank of the stream, leaning my broom against a nearby tree. "No, I..."

Have no answer as to why I'm here. He casts again, and my mind automatically draws parallel to my own casting; his fishing rod, my own wand. Even only observing this for the first time, it is clear both require grace, and in the dappled light of the sun, the line glistens in loops before the fly settles again on the stream to be carried by the current. It is an extraordinarily peaceful scene.

"Hm?" Chase asks, clearly paying more attention to his fishing than my trailed off awkwardness. He looks content and focused, one hand gathering in line when he needs to, the other holding onto the fishing rod, and the stream flowing around him in dancing scatters of sunlight.

And I watch, feeling my smile return, if quieter.

I think that perhaps I will just sit here, for a time. Perhaps that is why I _am_ here; to sit, and watch.

To admire the artistry of someone born without magic, creating it through rod and line and loop, forming it by grace and patience into something beautiful.


End file.
